Drake Chronicles: 03 Out for Blood (4 page)

Mom and Dad would be here soon. Hart wasn’t far either; I could hear the growl of his motorcycle on the other side of the grove. It was unprecedented for the leader of the Helios-Ra to be invited to a vampire coronation. We were making history in more ways than one tonight. The best part was that Aunt Hyacinth had joined us.

She came out of the pine trees, stil swathed in black lace veils, but at least she was here.

Lucy leaned into Nicholas, holding his hand. Logan and Isabeau were quiet but standing very close.

My brothers had the right idea.

We had time to kil , might as wel have a little fun.

I caught the eye of a vampire girl from the Joiik entourage. She had long red hair and she smiled at me, flashing a provocative peek of fang. And a lot of cleavage. I grinned.

“Cal me when it’s about to start,” I told Connor, fol owing her into the woods.

Chapter 4

•

Hunter

Tuesday night

Kieran was waiting for me behind the oak tree by the lane.

“What’s going on?” I asked, yawning. I’d pul ed my hair back in a messy ponytail and threw my cargo pants back on with the tank top I slept in.

“We’re going on a field trip,” he said smugly.

I blinked. “What,
now
?”

“Yeah, so hurry up.” The teachers’ main house was dark except for one of the upper bedrooms. The dining hal was deserted. Headmistress Bel wood’s house was farther down the driveway and dark as wel . “It’s a long walk.”

“Why can’t we take one of the bikes? There’s dozens of them in the garage.” The forest was so thick and there were so many fields that motorbikes were the easiest mode of transportation most of the time. On our own two feet, we’d never outrun a vampire in a mil ion years. Bikes gave us a fighting chance.

“Kinda hard with this,” he lifted his arm, wrapped in a soft cast. He’d hurt it last week helping to take down the old vampire queen, Lady Natasha. He had al the fun. “And you know they monitor the fuel gauges in those things.” I raised my eyebrows. “So the teachers don’t know about this little side trip.”

“No.”

“Kieran, I’m already in trouble.”

He snorted. “You’re never in trouble.”

“York.”

He winced. “Bummer. Wel , forget him. Hart himself gave permission to have you there.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, so let’s go already,” he said impatiently. “It’s at least an hour’s walk from here.”

“Where the hel are we going?” I muttered as we cut through the field and into the woods. The mosquitoes swarmed almost instantly. I slapped them away. This had better be worth it.

“Vampire coronation,” he answered.

Total y worth it.

“What? Real y? How did you get me clearance?”

“Hart asked for you. You shouldn’t sound so shocked; you were at the meeting last week. You did good, kid.”

“Kid? You’re barely a year older than me.”

“But I’m wise, little sister.”

“Just get us there, Obi-Wan.”

The moon poured out enough light to make the grass silver. The mosquitoes got worse the farther in we hiked and I didn’t care one bit. We were going to a vampire coronation.

Grandpa would have been horrified.

I was thril ed.

There hadn’t been one for over a hundred years. The last “queen,” Lady Natasha, had been tolerated, not official y crowned. When her lover, Montmartre, discarded her and set his sights on Solange Drake, Lady Natasha had gone crazy and tried to kil Solange. Everyone knew she was the first girl born to the Drake family in eight hundred years and prophesied to be the next queen. Only, she didn’t want to be queen—though that was hardly enough to stop Montmartre. He’d tried to abduct and marry her to take her power, but he’d been foiled by the Drakes and Isabeau St. Croix, the Hound princess I’d met at the treaty talks. And Kieran, of course, who was Solange’s boyfriend now and wore his broken arm proudly. With Montmartre final y dead, the Host, minions who had acted as his personal army, had scattered.

It gave the Helios-Ra an advantage.

The hundreds of
Hel-Blar
that Greyhaven, Montmartre’s lieutenant, had created and left to run savage took that advantage away again.

There were so many of them that they were starting to close in on Violet Hil and other smal towns in the area. The school now required twelfth-grade students to help on patrols until the problem was dealt with.

We walked for almost an hour until we reached a clearing with several parked motorcycles, al black. Helios-Ra agents. Hart and his group must have arrived already.

“Are we late?” I wished I was wearing proper clothes. I looked completely rumpled.

I wasn’t sure what one wore to a vampire coronation, but I had a feeling cargos and a tank top weren’t it. I didn’t even have my jacket with the vials of Hypnos set in the sleeves. Hypnos was a fairly new drug we carried in powdered form in little pen-shaped devices. Anyone who inhaled it, vampires included, were hypnotized for a short time into doing whatever they were told. It helped balance the odds since humans were susceptible to vampire glamour. Chloe’s mom was a biochemist and had helped develop the newest version of Hypnos.

Of which I had none tonight.

“I’m not prepared.” I showed him my bare wrists. No Hypnos, no daggers, nothing.

“You won’t need anything,” he assured me. “Besides, I know for a fact that you have no less than three stakes on you right now, and those boots have blades in the soles.”

“Stil .”

“We don’t have time to go back.” He nudged me gently into a jog, flipping open his cel phone to use the GPS. “We’re not far. The coordinates came in just before I got you.”

“It’s not at the caves with al the pomp and ceremony?”

“No way. After two botched assassination attempts in a single week, the Drakes decided on a secret coronation.”

“That is so cool.” And I stil couldn’t believe I’d been invited. “Wil the council be there?”

“Representatives from each ancient family, yeah.” The Raktapa Council were formed of the three most ancient and powerful vampire families. The Helios-Ra had a similar council.

“Who else? The Hounds?”

“Yeah, Isabeau, the princess you met last week.”

“That is so cool.” I nearly bounced on my toes. “Thanks for coming to get me.”

“Just don’t tel Caleb it was me.”

“As if I’m tel ing Grandpa at al .”

“Good plan.”

The concept of treaties between the peaceful vampire families, the Helios-Ra, and the Hounds was exciting to me. As exciting as firearms and surprise nest-takedowns was to Grandpa. And we’d almost lost the chance at an al iance entirely when Hope, one of the higher-ups, had sent her own rogue unit to attack the Drakes. She’d nearly taken down the entire society with her, putting any future hope of diplomacy in serious danger. I real y admired Hart and what he was trying to do. Especial y since Hope had kil ed his brother and partner, Kieran’s father, in order to rule with Hart. Grandpa, of course, wasn’t exactly ful of admiration for the treaty. Big surprise. I hated to disobey him even when I knew he was wrong. So if he didn’t know about it, he couldn’t forbid me to be a part of it and I wouldn’t have to lie and do it anyway.

“Can’t we go any faster?” I urged, nearly plucking the GPS out of Kieran’s hand.

This was better than prom.

He swatted me away. “Cut it out.”

“Can you believe we’re doing this?” I shook my head. “I thought you were usual y on Grandpa’s side with this stuff.”

“Yeah, then I met a girl.”

I smirked. “I total y love that.”

“Yeah, yeah. It also helped to learn that vampires didn’t kil my father.” We stepped around a copse of elm trees and came face-to-face with a vampire, armed to his pointy fang-teeth. Instinct had me reach for my stake. He was wrestler-huge and bone-pale.

“We got the cal ,” Kieran said, stepping in front of me. He stomped on my foot while he was at it. I fel back, but only a little. I might be thril ed to be here but I was stil in training. I didn’t smile prettily at vampires in the middle of the night in the middle of the woods. I was no Little Red Riding Hood.

“Password?”

Kieran glanced down at his phone’s display and read off a word in a language I’d never heard before. It sounded old.

The guard nodded. “Go ahead. Turn right at the cedars and go straight through into the pine forest.”

“Thanks.”

It felt weird to turn my back on a vampire. I must have more of Grandpa in me than I thought.

The red pines towered above us, the ground a carpet of fal en needles and not much else. In the center, Helena Drake and her husband, Liam, waited, along with most of their sons, Isabeau, Lucy, and a bald human bodyguard. Hart was on Liam’s left, with three more hunters. The Raktapa families were there, each with a guard holding up a banner painted with their family insignia. The Drake banner was a dragon entwined with ivy and Latin words I couldn’t read. There were other vampires as wel , nearly a dozen of them.

I didn’t see Quinn.

Not that I was looking for him.

And not that his twin, Connor, wasn’t standing right next to Solange, looking exactly like him. Except that Connor’s hair was shorter.

Stil .

I fol owed Kieran to Hart’s side. He kept sending Solange sidelong glances. She smiled, pale as a pearl. Her fangs were very sharp but delicate. Treaties were al wel and good in theory but something else entirely when a vampire was flashing fangs at someone you considered to be your brother. I wondered if I should worry about him.

“Hunter.” Hart smiled at me. “Glad you could make it.”

“Thank you, sir.” I tried not to flutter and went overboard into formal cadet stance.

He was the head of the entire society and he knew my name and he’d asked for me specifical y.

“At ease,” he said. “You’re here to witness history, not do battle,” he added.

“Yes, sir.”

“We’re nearly ready,” Liam cal ed out pointedly.

Quinn sauntered out of the woods, a vampire girl on his arm. They were both grinning and it was total y obvious what they’d been doing. He was just as gorgeous as I remembered, his long hair fal ing nearly to his shoulders, his eyes so blue they didn’t seem real. The girl giggled.

I refused to stare. Mostly.

It wasn’t my fault if I could stil see him out of my peripheral vision. It was a hunter’s duty to be aware of her surroundings.

Even if those surroundings included a beautiful vampire with a charming smile who liked to flirt with anything that had boobs.

Except for me, apparently.

I did
not
just think that.

Luckily the ceremony began before I embarrassed myself completely. I was also exceedingly grateful that vampires couldn’t read minds.

Quinn was only smirking at me because he smirked at everybody.

Helena stepped forward, flanked in a semicircle by Liam and Hart on one side, the Council representatives and Isabeau on the other. The rest of us stepped back to form a loose clump of bystanders who eyed each other cautiously. We’d al lost family members to each other at some point in our history. You didn’t automatical y forget that.

“Weapons down,” Helena said grimly.

The reaction was equal y grim. No one wanted to be the first to relinquish any weapon, not in this crowd. Glances flickered back and forth, mouths tightened, hands curled into fists. No one moved.

Until Solange lifted her chin and pul ed three stakes from her belt, holding them up so that everyone could see. Then she dropped them in the grass.

Silence. The kind you can only get when you’re surrounded by vampires. It made my shoulders tense.

Helena was the next to disarm herself. She had a smal arsenal on the ground by the time she was done. Everyone else fol owed their lead until we stood in a circle of discarded stakes, swords, daggers, crossbows, and Helios-Ra UV guns.

The coronation was simple and quick; there were too many
Hel-Blar
in the area and too many unproven loyalties. I imagined the more traditional version was longer and ful of grand speeches and costumes. This one was as impressive in its own way. At least, I thought so. The pine trees were solemn, silent witnesses and the wind was warm and smel ed of wet earth, tossing the boughs aside to show us glimpses of the stars. A wolf howled in the distance. Fireflies glimmered al around us.

Liam’s voice was warm as whiskey and just as strong. “Do you acknowledge Helena Drake as the queen of the vampire tribes by right of conquest?” One by one the representatives knelt, saying “aye.” The council members wore elaborate gowns and suits. Isabeau didn’t kneel, but she inclined her head respectful y. The Hounds offered fealty to no one but their Shamanka. Spencer would have given his left arm to meet that Shamanka but she wasn’t here.

Apparently she never left her caves. Hart nodded as wel .

I tried not to look as awed as I felt. Helena stepped forward. Her hair was in a long black braid down her back and she wore a sleeveless black dress with a wide belt that normal y hung with daggers and stakes. Her boots made me drool. I was sure she could have concealed at least four different kinds of knives in them. I
so
had to get myself a pair.

“I promise to stand between the tribes and danger, to foster autonomy and respect between the families, the councils, and the society. I promise to be your queen until such time as my daughter might choose to relieve me.”

“Oh, Mom, not you too,” I distinctly heard Solange mutter. Kieran reached for her hand. She leaned into him. A few of the vampires stared at them. Someone hissed and was elbowed into silence.

Helena dropped to one knee after everyone else had risen again.

“I serve the tribes.”

Liam unwrapped a velvet bundle, producing a slender silver circlet. It was set with three huge rubies and smal er pearls. Liam crowned his wife, looking proud.

Isabeau tilted her head faintly, frowning thoughtful y at the crown.

There was a round of applause and silver pendants were handed out to the assembled group. They looked kind of like Catholic saint medal ions, only they were imprinted with the Drake insignia on one side and the royal symbol on the other—a ruby-encrusted crown and sword. I slipped mine into my pocket. I couldn’t wait to get back to the dorm where I could properly admire it.